Various kinds of brightening faces are arranged inside and outside a vehicle to achieve functional, safety and decorative objects.
Head lamps, tail lamps, emblem and the like form brightening faces outside the vehicle while meters in front of the driver's seat are brightened inside the vehicle.
In the case of a rear panel garnish (a) arranged at the back of a car (C.sub.1) and shown in FIG. 1, light emitting members (d) and (d') are attached to a transparent piece (c) whose thickness (t.sub.l) is substantially large and then fixed to the car frame by a plate (e), so that letters (b) can be brightened and displayed.
Rear combination lamps (f) and (f') of a car (C.sub.2) shown in FIG. 2a are relatively too large in thickness (t.sub.2) and the space in which the rear combination lamps are housed is also quite large in thickness (t.sub.3) relative to the size of the car body.
The reason why the space in which these rear combination lamps are housed becomes too large in thickness is that sufficient room is needed for the light emitting members such as electric light bulbs which serve as light sources, their wirings and a space in which these members and wirings are housed. When the tendency to make the cars smaller in size and lighter in weight is dominant, therefore, an improvement must be added to these combination lamps. The size and weight of other various parts which are brightened must also be improved.
Each of the rear combination lamps (f) and (f') which must be brought under legal rules and brightened as decorations is made as a unit comprising a brake lamp (m.sub.1), tail lamp (m.sub.2), traffic indicator or blinker (m.sub.3) and emergency lamp (m.sub.4), as shown in FIG. 2b, and these components take up a large space, thereby reducing the size of trunk room at the back of the car.
FIG. 2c is a sectional view showing the rear combination lamp (f) or (f') in FIG. 2b and when the lamp becomes complicated in construction, its thickness (t.sub.4) ranges even from 100 mm to 180 mm because a filament bulb (w) attached to a lamp body (D) must have a certain distance relative to a lens (R) to uniformly brighten the lens (R). Even when the lamp is designed like this, however, the lens (R) cannot be brightened as a uniformly light-emitting face.
The inside space (s) of the rear combination lamp (f) or (f') must be sealed in view of electric insulation.
These factors prevent complicated designs from being applied to the rear combination lamp (f) or (f') and even when complicated designs could be applied to the lamp, it will become substantially expensive.
As already well known from preliminarily-opened Japanese Patent Application Sho 58/110332 and Japanese Utility Model Application Sho 60/13052, EL (electroluminescence) or LED is used as a light source to brighten decorative matters, but when EL is used, voltage needed becomes high in proportion to the size of a face to be brightened. In addition, an inverter is needed to switch voltage from DC to AC. When LED is used, a large space is needed to house the LED lamp. In both cases, however, their wirings must be compacted in a space as small as possible, thereby compromising the safety of these decorative matters.
The conventional front grille was made by sputtering, plating, or coating opaque synthetic resin with a design. As shown in FIG. 3, the front grille (F) plays the most important role in designing a car (C.sub.3) and it is desirable that the front grille is made integral to the body of the car. It is also desirable in view of aerodynamic design that the front grille be made integral with the headlights. Because the recent car body is made flush and provided with glass faces, a transparent crystal front grille is employed. However, the design merit of making the front grille of transparent material is only three-dimensional and too simple, as compared with the design merit of making the front grille by sputtering, plating or coating opaque synthetic resin. The front grille looks gloomy particularly at the twilight and in the night because it has no metal surface which reflects light.
FIGS. 4a and 4b show an indicator (Y.sub.1) for the transmission change gear lever in the conventional automatic car wherein a filament bulb (w) is fixed to an indicator body (Y.sub.2) to light the underside of a display housing (H) so that letters P, R, N, D, 2 and L on a display (B) can be lit with same brightness and color tone. Symbol (S) represents a slider sliding in the longitudinal direction thereof and the change gear lever (not shown) is passed through a hole (g) in the center of the slider (S) and a slit (g') in the display housing (H). When the transmission change gear lever is switched, one of the letters (b) is brightened red through a transparent mark (M), showing the position of the transmission change gear lever. As shown in FIG. 4a, the position of the change gear lever in the automatic car is usually displayed by the letters of P, R, N, D, 2 and L, and P, R, D, 2 and L of them are white in tone while N is green in tone. These letters are made so bright that the driver can see them, particularly in the night, and they must have the same brightness and color tone.
As shown in FIG. 4b, however, those distances of the filament bulb (w) which are relative to the letters are different, so that the letters cannot be lit with same brightness and color tone. To overcome this problem, the letters must be silk-printed thicker and thicker as they come nearer to the filament bulb (w). However, these silk-printing and coating cause more and more errors and include more and more processes as they are repeated.